College attracting more veterans

The job market might be tough, but a number of veterans and people who work with them say the Post-9/11 GI Bill is the best one yet, and almost 1 million veterans and their dependents have used its benefits to go to college since it was passed in 2008.

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Posted Mar. 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

Posted Mar. 3, 2013 at 2:00 AM

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ASK A VETERAN

SUNY Orange's Veterans Club will host an "Ask a Veteran" event where people can ask a panel of veterans what it's like to be in the military. It will be 11 a.m., March 28, at the George F. Shepard ...

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ASK A VETERAN

SUNY Orange's Veterans Club will host an "Ask a Veteran" event where people can ask a panel of veterans what it's like to be in the military. It will be 11 a.m., March 28, at the George F. Shepard Student Center.

The job market might be tough, but a number of veterans and people who work with them say the Post-9/11 GI Bill is the best one yet, and almost 1 million veterans and their dependents have used its benefits to go to college since it was passed in 2008.

Between August 2009 and the end of 2012, more than 945,000 people have gone to school using its benefits, said Maura McCarthy, spokeswoman for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. The bill covers tuition costs and also provides a housing stipend. Although some veterans going back to college choose to work, most of them receive enough in benefits that they don't have to, said Maureen Flaherty, who is in charge of veterans' counseling and programs at SUNY Orange.

"With this GI Bill, they can actually not work, and focus on school," she said. "I think that's why a lot of veterans are really using this GI Bill. It's probably the best one we ever had."

"It's very, very helpful," said William Cuttler, the president of the Veterans Club at SUNY Orange's Middletown campus. Cuttler is a full-time student who is also taking care of a 3-year-old daughter.

About 200 veterans are going to SUNY Orange now, and the school has made a major push to be veteran-friendly over the past few years. Flaherty, who was originally hired as a counselor and academic advisor five years ago, had worked with veterans in her previous job at the Culinary Institute of America, and started doing outreach to the ones at SUNY Orange.

"I meet each new veteran who arrives on campus," she said. "I'm the point person for them. Any problems that they have, issues, problems getting assimilated — I'm the person who would do that."

SUNY Orange now has active veterans clubs on both its Newburgh and Middletown campuses, and they also recently put in place a veterans mentoring program, where new students are paired with others who are already there, by military branch when possible. In 2012, Victory Media Inc. ranked the school among the top 15 percent of colleges that are doing the most for veterans.

"I feel that we're attracting more veterans because of the things we have in place for them right now," Flaherty said.

William Cuttler of Wurtsboro, president of the Veterans Club at SUNY Orange's Middletown campus, full-time student and dad, says he finds the GI Bill benefits “very helpful.”

Photo: Tom Bushey/Times Herald-Record

Cuttler, a Middletown High School graduate who served on a funeral detail with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in Iraq, enrolled at SUNY Orange in January 2012, and started to try to put a veterans club together soon after. While there wasn't much interest at first, it soon took off. Cuttler said he wanted to create a place where veterans could relax, share their experiences and talk about ways to move forward and use their experiences "as an asset, rather than a burden."

Jason Westbrook, a Cornwall native, 13-year Marine Corps veteran and the president of the Newburgh club, said the goal is "to reach out to veterans and assist them with everything they need" — such as how to apply for benefits and schedule appointments with the VA at Castle Point.

"We speak a different language when we're in the service," he said. "(It's) a forum where you can meet somebody who understands the language you're talking, and (it) builds on that. It's really a fantastic experience."

Most veterans going to college are a few years older than most of the other students, and haven't been in a classroom in a while. Students with service-related mental or physical issues can require accommodations, Flaherty said — their own room and extra time to take a test if they have traumatic brain injury, for example. Students with post-traumatic stress disorder, she said, can have it triggered by certain noises, or could feel uncomfortable in a crowd and may have to leave the classroom suddenly if something sets them off. This means they sometimes need to communicate with their professors about what they're doing.

"It's a little tricky," she said. "They don't want to reveal, always, too much. But if they have a situation where they suddenly feel anxious, crowded, want to leave the room, it's good the instructor would let them."

Westbrook said readjusting to civilian life means you have to get used to interacting with people differently.

"Something you do that in the military is standard practice might be perceived as rude in civilian life," he said. "Your tone, your approach, you may not think you're being offensive or rude, but you are. We work hard to develop the tools needed so you're not perceived as coming off in a manner that's a negative one, but a positive one."

Being a little older and having the experiences they do is also an advantage, said Cuttler and Westbrook. They're accustomed to routine and performing tasks, often conduct themselves better in class and take academics more seriously than many kids just out of high school.

"We're very driven," said Westbrook. "We understand what it means to be prompt, to attend class on time, to attend all classes. The work ethic is naturally there after you've gone through the experience of the military."